Poetry

[JazzyDame]

Weary with toil, I haste me to my bed,
The dear repose for limbs with travel tired;
But then begins a journey in my head
To work my mind, when body's work's expired:
For then my thoughts--from far where I abide--
Intend a zealous pilgrimage to thee,
And keep my drooping eyelids open wide,
Looking on darkness which the blind do see:
Save that my soul's imaginary sight
Presents thy shadow to my sightless view,
Which, like a jewel hung in ghastly night,
Makes black night beauteous, and her old face new.
Lo! thus, by day my limbs, by night my mind,
For thee, and for myself, no quiet find.

~Sonnet XXVII, William Shakespeare

…my dearest Will, how you do woo…

 

[JazzyDame]

‘Tis Friday, and as the week draws to a close let us remember what blessings we have in “the simple things”, for often the profound truths and beauties of life—of Creation—abide in simplicity. Here’s a poem that serves as a gentle reminder to be mindful in that regard, lest we “get too big for our britches”, as my father used to say.


I would not be too wise--so very wise
That I must sneer at simple songs and creeds,
And let the glare of wisdom blind my eyes
To humble people and their humble needs.

I would not care to climb so high that I
Could never hear the children at their play,
Could only see the people passing by,
And never hear the cheering words they say.

I would not know too much--too much to smile
At trivial errors of the heart and hand,
Nor be too proud to play the friend the while,
Nor cease to help and know and understand.

I would not care to sit upon a throne,
Or build my house upon a mountain-top,
Where I must dwell in glory all alone
And never friend come in or poor man stop.

God grant that I may live upon this earth
And face the tasks which every morning brings
And never lose the glory and the worth
Of humble service and the simple things.

~The Simple Things, Edgar A. Guest

 

[Widebrim]

^^Again, some lovely examples, JazzyDame, the themes of which merit meditation. I am also partial to Sonnet 116 by Shakespeare:

Let me not to the marriage of true minds
Admit impediments. Love is not love
Which alters when it alteration finds,
Or bends with the remover to remove:
O no! it is an ever-fixed mark
That looks on tempests and is never shaken;
It is the star to every wandering bark,
Whose worth's unknown, although his height be taken.
Love's not Time's fool, though rosy lips and cheeks
Within his bending sickle's compass come:
Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,
But bears it out even to the edge of doom.
If this be error and upon me proved,
I never writ, nor no man ever loved.

 

[JazzyDame]

^^I have always enjoyed (so much that I committed it to memory long ago) Sonnet 116, as it speaks of the constancy and steadfastness of true love, come fair or foul weather and regardless of the passage of time…and it reminds me of my parents, who will be celebrating their 48th wedding anniversary this August. Their love is my example, my earthly ideal.

Thank you for your comments…I’ve enjoyed this past week and my return to the Lounge. I’ll admit that it’s been a bit of an indulgence, really, and I’ll miss visiting with such frequency when I return to work on Monday. I must make it a point to maintain a regular visitation schedule…so many wonderful conversations take place here, so many historical discoveries to make.

God bless you, Widebrim, and thanks again for making me feel welcome and quite at home.

As ever,
Cate

 

[JazzyDame]

Disturb us, Lord, when
We are too pleased with ourselves,
When our dreams have come true
Because we dreamed too little,
When we arrived safely
Because we sailed too close to the shore.

Disturb us, Lord, when
with the abundance of things we possess
We have lost our thirst
For the waters of life;
Having fallen in love with life,
We have ceased to dream of eternity
And in our efforts to build a new earth,
We have allowed our vision
Of the new Heaven to dim.

Disturb us, Lord, to dare more boldly,
To venture on wilder seas
Where storms will show Your mastery;
Where losing sight of land,
We shall find the stars.

We ask you to push back
The horizons of our hopes;
And to push us into the future
In strength, courage, hope, and love.

This we ask in the name of our Captain,
Who is Jesus Christ.

~Sir Francis Drake, 1557, before departing from Portsmouth, England, to circumnavigate the globe.

"Launch out into the deep..." ~Luke 5: 4

 

[JazzyDame]

Greetings, Mr. Kipling—what say ye?

If you can keep your head when all about you
Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,
If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you
But make allowance for their doubting too,
If you can wait and not be tired by waiting,
Or being lied about, don't deal in lies,
Or being hated, don't give way to hating,
And yet don't look too good, nor talk too wise:

If you can dream--and not make dreams your master,
If you can think--and not make thoughts your aim;
If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster
And treat those two impostors just the same;
If you can bear to hear the truth you've spoken
Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools,
Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken,
And stoop and build 'em up with worn-out tools:

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it all on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings
And never breathe a word about your loss;
If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew
To serve your turn long after they are gone,
And so hold on when there is nothing in you
Except the Will which says to them: "Hold on!"

If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,
Or walk with kings--nor lose the common touch,
If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you;
If all men count with you, but none too much,
If you can fill the unforgiving minute
With sixty seconds' worth of distance run,
Yours is the Earth and everything that's in it,
And--which is more--you'll be a Man, my son!

~If, Rudyard Kipling

“It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves.”~Sir Edmund Hillary

 

[Widebrim]

^^I've loved that one for many years...

 

[JazzyDame]

Having spent much of this morning in the garden, I am reminded of a poem written by one of my students...

There is a fence around the garden,
And for its entrance stands one gate.
The Protector and this garden,
Where I arrive by some strange fate.
I glanced the perfect flower,
Or the spark from gentle eye;
Keeper, keep this garden,
Which I chanced to travel by.
If this is water, I am thirst;
A vagrant passing the serene:
A garden tall, a garden sweet,
A garden beautiful in green.
Keeper, keep this garden.
Keep out birds and ward off weeds.
This is your charge from the Protector,
Your reward for planted seeds.
Keeper, see the flowers?—
They are dwelling in the wild;
They are kept by the Protector
Just as you have kept your child.
I live among those flowers.
I have no garden of my own,
But faith is not of flowers—
It’s the hope when seeds are sown.

~Seed Poem, J.H.

 

[JazzyDame]

^^I've loved that one for many years...

A favorite of mine, as well, though it's clearly written for a male audience. Its message is universal, however, and genderless in quality. I've seen a more contemporary version penned by a different poet and written for a female audience, but I much prefer Mr. Kipling's poem.

 

[JazzyDame]

I enjoy Clive Staples Lewis—a lot!—yet didn’t discover his poetry until after my formal academic studies of him. Much of Lewis' work (including his poetry) was shrouded in secrecy and he published under various pseudonyms, such as 'Nat Whilk', which is Anglo-Saxon for 'I know not whom'.

On an entirely different note (but there’s a segue just around the corner), I find it comical that folks often forget to differentiate between 'astrology' [a non-science, and a hoax-laden craft purported to predict events and occurrences on Earth by observance of celestial quirks (figuratively) and quarks (literally)], and 'astronomy' (a science based on the discovery and movement of celestial bodies by meticulous observation and prediction). Now, Lewis was known to have had a profound interest in astronomy, and we see this evidenced in a number of his works, including his poem The Meteorite.

…and this is where I need to remind you that there’s a wonderful meteor shower, the Lyrids, slated for this month—April 21st. Mark your calendars, but bear in mind that we’ll have a waxing moon to contend with which may affect viewing. Without further ado…

Among the hills a meteorite
Lies huge; and moss has overgrown,
And wind and rain with touches light
Made soft, the contours of the stone.

Thus easily can Earth digest
A cinder of sidereal fire,
And make her translunary guest
The native of an English shire.

Nor is it strange these wanderers
Find in her lap their fitting place,
For every particle that's hers
Came at the first from outer space.

All that is Earth has once been sky;
Down from the sun of old she came,
Or from some star that travelled by
Too close to his entangling flame.

Hence, if belated drops yet fall
From heaven, on these her plastic power
Still works as once it worked on all
The glad rush of the golden shower.

Ah...I really like that one. I am a sucker for a good meteor shower and, as you may have conjectured, a passion for astronomy.

“Are you conscious of the restful influence which the stars exert? To me they are the most soothing things of Nature. I am proud to say that I don’t know the name of one of them. The glamour and romance would pass away from them if they were all classified and ticketed in one’s brain. But when a man is hot and flurried and full of his own little ruffled dignities and infinitesimal misfortunes, then a star bath is the finest thing in the world.” ~Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, The Stark Munro Letters

 

[JazzyDame]

Not to the swift, the race:
Not to the strong, the fight:
Not to the righteous, perfect grace:
Not to the wise, the light.

But often faltering feet
Come surest to the goal;
And they who walk in darkness meet
The Sunrise of the soul.

A thousand times by night
The Syrian hosts have died;
A thousand times the vanquished right
Hath risen, glorified.

The truth the wise men sought
Was spoken by a Child;
The alabaster box was brought
In trembling hands defiled.

Not from my torch, the gleam,
But from the stars above:
Not from my heart, life's crystal stream,
But from the depths of Love.

~ Reliance, Henry van Dyke

 

[JazzyDame]

No coward soul is mine,
No trembler in the world's storm-troubled sphere;
I see Heaven's glories shine,
And Faith shines equal, arming me from fear.
O God within my breast,
Almighty, ever-present Deity!
Life--that in me has rest,
As I--undying Life--have power in Thee!
Vain are the thousand creeds
That move men's hearts--unutterably vain;
Worthless as withered weeds,
Or idlest froth amid the boundless main,
To waken doubt in one
Holding so fast by Thine infinity;
So surely anchored on
The steadfast rock of immortality.
With wide-embracing love
Thy spirit animates eternal years
Pervades and broods above,
Changes, sustains, dissolves, creates, and rears.
Though earth and man were gone,
And suns and universes ceased to be,
And Thou were left alone,
Every existence would exist in Thee.
There is not room for Death,
Nor atom that his might could render void;
Thou--Thou art Being and Breath,
And what Thou art may never be destroyed.

~ No Coward Soul is Mine, Emily Brontë

 

[JazzyDame]

No man is an island,
Entire of itself.
Each is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less.
As well as if a promontory were.
As well as if a manor of thine own
Or of thine friend's were.
Each man's death diminishes me,
For I am involved in mankind.
Therefore, send not to know
For whom the bell tolls,
It tolls for thee.

These oft-quoted words by John Donne were not written as a poem, but were taken as prose from Meditation17 (Devotions Upon Emergent Occasions).

Today is Holocaust Remembrance Day…it has been nearly 70 years since over 6 million Jews were slaughtered at the hands of an evil despot over a period of four and one half years—a plan known as the “Final Solution”, to rid the world of Jews. Whole communities of Jews were murdered, and it became sport to literally hunt them down, one by one. We’ve all seen the gruesome images of beautiful souls—children, women, men—wasting away in the ghettos, suffering in the camps, being led to the gas chambers…6 million souls. Such unfathomable evil, such indescribable horror.

Let us never forget these atrocities, and let us always remember that we are all “a part of the main”—this wasn’t only a tragedy brought against Jews, but a tragedy brought against humanity. Whatever wickedness and barbarism is wrought ruthlessly against any member of the human race is also wrought against each one of us.

 

[Widebrim]

^^As you write, may the world never forget when evil itself reigned in the hearts of those who professed to be human, and may we vow to destroy evil wherever and whenever it appears.

 

[esteban68]

I had to study Thomas Hardy at school some 30 years ago as part of my O level English, In honesty I still have great respect and admiration for the lady who taught us as she brought it all alive, we didn't really study his poetry much but I loved the Darkling Thrush so much that after leaving school I bought his complete poetry paperback, it's now falling apart but I just love his stuff;

To Jan with thanks...

THE DARKLING THRUSH

by: Thomas Hardy (1840-1928)

I leant upon a coppice gate
When Frost was spectre-gray,
And Winter's dregs made desolate
The weakening eye of day.

The tangled bine-stems scored the sky
Like strings of broken lyres,
And all mankind that haunted nigh
Had sought their household fires.

The land's sharp features seem'd to be
The Century's corpse outleant,
His crypt the cloudy canopy,
The wind his death-lament.
The ancient pulse of germ and birth
Was shrunken hard and dry,
And every spirit upon earth
Seem'd fervourless as I.

At once a voice arose among
The bleak twigs overhead
In a full-hearted evensong
Of joy illimited;
An aged thrush, frail, gaunt, and small,
In blast-beruffled plume,
Had chosen thus to fling his soul
Upon the growing gloom.

So little cause for carollings
Of such ecstatic sound
Was written on terrestrial things
Afar or nigh around,
That I could think there trembled through
His happy good-night air
Some blessèd Hope, whereof he knew
And I was unaware.

 

[JazzyDame]

^^Isn’t it interesting that, in reflecting on the passage of years, it was often those subjects or pastimes that seemed as drudgery to us as children/young adults that often become the treasures of enduring joy? I remember, as a child, my father would blast us kids out of bed on Sunday mornings with the high-spirited works of Beethoven. He would turn the phonograph up to full volume and I’d bury my head beneath the pillows to cope with the “rude awakening”, and I outright loathed Beethoven. Today…I love it, and can’t resist turning up the volume on his 5th Symphony, among others, and feeling the force and the power behind each movement.

I recall a similar experience, esteban68, in a high school English class. The subject? Poetry. I mocked it and felt is was my teacher’s method of torment and wondered what we, as a class, could have done that warranted such torture. We read Poe, Shelley, Tennyson, Keats, Frost, and so many others…and I grew to love them, each for their unique poetical offerings and perspectives.

Thank you for sharing Thomas Hardy’s The Darkling Thrush today--what lovely, hope-inspiring prose, and how timely this was…just this morning, I awakened to a “resident mockingbird” that returns each year in the Spring and stays through the Summer and early Autumn. He was singing with wild abandon, as if rejoicing over some good news he'd just received and simply couldn’t contain his enthusiasm. So many signposts in nature remind us to "look up", claim joy, and rejoice!

On that note, I offer this:

I need wide spaces in my heart
Where faith and I can go apart
And grow serene.

Life gets so choked by busy living,
Kindness so lost in fussy giving,
That love slips by unseen.

I want to make a quiet place
Where those I love can see God’s face,
Can stretch their hearts across the earth,
Can understand what Spring is worth,
Can count the stars, watch violets grow,
And learn what birds and children know.
~Streams in the Desert

 

[esteban68]

Hi JD, similar experiences I guess for many, we were predominantly brought up by our grandparents which may explain my slightly old fashioned ways and likes for a 44 year old!........my grandfather used to play his country and western records every Sunday morning it was part of the pre British Sunday dinner ritual many Britons of that era shared....he was a very hard working man a collier( miner) who had to work long shifts, when he got a Sunday off he made the most of it and chose to spend it with his family instead of 'down the working man's club' like many of his colleagues, at first I hated the C&W but after a while got used to it and now I love some of it especially dare I say it Jim Reeves!!!

When I started work as an engineering apprentice in thye early 80's the only radio station we could get at work was BBC radio 2, again at first I hated it as all it seemed to play was 40's 50's, 60's 70's and some early 80's music not deemed too 'out there' after a while I knew many of the songs off by heart, Doris Day, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, The Beatles etc etc....interestingly every car we've ever owned has been permanently set to recieve radio 2 and most of our music collection is from those eras, my wife has an extensive Motown, Northern Soul collection of her own.

 

[MarkJohn]

From my favorite poet Alice Oswald's book Memorial, which is a translation of Homer's Iliad, but pared-down to the deaths of the soldiers on the field, interspersed by beatiful simerlies... Stunning, dark and powerful writing.


The first to die was PROTESILAUS
A focused man who hurried to darkness
With forty black ships leaving the land behind
Men sailed with him from those flower-lit cliffs
Where the grass gives growth to everything
Pyrasus Iton Pteleus Antron
He died in mid-air jumping to be first ashore
There was his house half-built
His wife rushed out clawing her face
Podarcus his altogether less impressive brother
Took over command but that was long ago
He's been in the black earth now for thousands of years

Like a wind-murmur
Begins a rumour of waves
One long note getting louder
The water breathes a deep sigh
Like a land-ripple
When the west wind runs through a field
Wishing and searching
Nothing to be found
The corn-stalks shake their green heads

Like a wind-murmur
Begins a rumour of waves
One long note getting louder
The water breathes a deep sigh
Like a land-ripple
When the west wind runs through a field
Wishing and searching
Nothing to be found
The corn-stalks shake their green heads

ECHEPOLUS a perfect fighter
Always ahead of his men
Known for his cold seed-like concentration
Moving out and out among the spears
Died at the hands of Antilochus
You can see the hole in the helmet just under the ridge
Where the point of the blade passed through
And stuck in his forehead
Letting the darkness leak down over his eyes

ELEPHENOR from Euboea in command of forty ships
Son of Chalcodon nothing is known of his mother
Died dragging the corpse of Echepolus
A little flash of flesh showing under the shield as he bent
Agenor stabbed him in the ninth year of the war
He wore his hair long at the back

Like leaves
Sometimes they light their green flames
And are fed by the earth
And sometimes it snuffs them out

Like leaves
Sometimes they light their green flames
And are fed by the earth
And sometimes it snuffs them out

SIMOISIUS born on the banks of the Simois
Son of Anthemion his mother a shepherdess
Still following the sheep when she gave birth
A lithe and promising young man unmarried
Was met by Ajax in the ninth year of the war
And died full tilt running onto his spear
The point passed clean through the nipple
And came out through the shoulderblade
He collapsed instantly an unspeakable sorrow to his parents

And LEUKOS friend of Odysseus
Little is known of him except his death

And someone's face pierced like a piece of fruit
That was Priam's son unlucky man
Who made his living in the horse country
North of Troy he was stepping backwards
When the darkness hit him with a dull clang
His name was DEMOCOON

Like a man steps back
Seeing a snake almost under his foot
In a heathery hollow
The fear flutters his knees it
Sucks him white he steps back

Like a man steps back
Seeing a snake almost under his foot
In a heathery hollow
The fear flutters his knees it
Sucks him white he steps back

 

[Widebrim]

On that note, I offer this:

I need wide spaces in my heart
Where faith and I can go apart
And grow serene.

Life gets so choked by busy living,
Kindness so lost in fussy giving,
That love slips by unseen.

I want to make a quiet place
Where those I love can see God’s face,
Can stretch their hearts across the earth,
Can understand what Spring is worth,
Can count the stars, watch violets grow,
And learn what birds and children know.
~Streams in the Desert

One can see why it is considered a classic.

JazzyDame, I tried to send you a Private Message, but this time was unable to; it was indicated that you are not receiving any. -Lee

 

[JazzyDame]

^^My apologies, Lee. I made a change to my FL account which, consequently, required confirmation from me to activate the change...which I inadvertently neglected. Apparently, one's profile is temporarily suspended pending confirmation. So, I suppose now that I've given the "secret knock", I'm allowed a return entrance to the Lounge.